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(آندرو نجيب؛ الصفحة الشخصية)
No Exit
Written by Jean-Paul Sartre
Garcin
GARCIN:
don't you boast you've caught me off my guard.
GARCIN:
But she never cried. Never uttered a word of reproach. Only her eyes spoke.
INEZ:
Why did you hurt her like that?
GARCIN:
It was so easy. A word was enough to make her flinch. Like a sensitive-plant. But never, never a reproach. I'm fond of teasing. I watched and waited. But on, not a tear, not a protest. I'd picked her up out of the gutter, you understand…Now she's stroking the coat. Her eyes are shut and she's feeling with her fingers for the bullet-holes. What are you after? What do you expect? I tell you I regret nothing. The truth is, she admired me too much.
GARCIN:
I sleuthed myself like a detective.
GARCIN:
But they won't forget me, not they! They'll die, but others will come after them to carry on the legend. I've left my fate in their hands.
ESTELLE:
You think too much, that's your trouble.
GARCIN:
Now listen! I want you to do me a service. No don't shrink away. I know it must seem strange to you, having someone asking you for help; you're not use to that. But if you'll make the effort, if you'll only will it hard enough, I dare say we can really love each other. Look at it this way. A thousand of them are procaliming I'm a coward; but what do numbers matter? If there's someone, just one person, to say quite positively I did not run away, that I'm not the sort who runs away, that I'm brave and decent and the rest of it—well, that on person's faith would save me.
GARCIN:
There were days when you peered into yourself, into the secret places of your heart and what you saw there made you faint with horror.
Inez
INEZ:
What would be the use? There was some point in being afraid before; while one still had hope.
INEZ:
When I say I'm cruel, I mean I can't get on without making people suffer. Like a live coal. A live coal in others' hears. When I'm alone I flicker out.
Estelle
ESTELLE:
There are some faces that tell me everything at once. Yours don't convey anything.
ESTELLE:
That's just it. I haven't a notion, not the foggiest. In fact, I'm wondering if there hasn't been some ghastly mistake. [ToINEZ
] Don't smile. Just think of the number of people who—who became absentees every day. There must be thousands and thousands, and probably they're sorted out by-by understrappers, you know what I mean. Stupid employees who don't know their job.
ESTELLE:
My brother was a very delicate child and needed all sorts of attention.
ESTELLE:
I've six big mirrors in my bedroom. There they are. I can see them. But they don't see me. They're reflecting the carpet, the settee, the window, but how empty it is, a glass in which I'm absent! When I talked to people I always made sure there was one near by in which I could see myself. I watched myself talking. And somehow it kept me alert, seeing myself as the others saw me.
♚
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